Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 5).djvu/128

 CHAPTER V

HE correspondence included in the chapter preceding affords probably the utmost light that can be thrown today upon the reason of the making of the great Pennsylvanian thoroughfare to the Ohio. It cannot be affirmed, as has often been said, that Forbes was early prejudiced in favor of a Pennsylvania route; he never could have been such a hypocrite as to pen the words to be found on page 94. That his first plans were completely altered at the advice of Sir John St. Clair is very plain from his letters to Governor Denny (March 20) and to Colonel Bouquet (July 6); but up to the very last he leaves the question open, to be decided wholly according to the reports of the guides and explorers. It is difficult, however, to reconcile the words in Forbes's letter to Bouquet of July 23, in which he states